Opinion | Features

In this guest post, Nick Fawbert highlights what YouTube’s rules for branded content mean for advertisers and multi-channel networks.
There was something of an inevitability about last week’s dismay over YouTube’s ‘clarification’ on the fees payable for branded content on YouTube’s channels. No commercially viable major platform is likely to offer free access to valuable audiences in perpetuity.

In this guest post, Anthony Freedman argues that media agencies will find it harder than they think to shift into public relations territory because it requires an entirely different culture.
Like a lot of people, I noticed the coverage surrounding Mat Baxter’s reveal of UM’s new “Creative Connections Agency” positioning last week.
It started with a piece in Mumbrella provocatively headlined “Media agencies aren’t our competitors” and continued the following day after Mat was goaded into stating UM “won’t be entering media agency awards any more”.
For anyone who didn’t read the stories, the gist of it is this; UM is no longer a media agency, it’s a ‘connections company’ that is embracing earned and owned media, and thus will herein compete with the likes of R/GA, Google and (closest to my heart) One Green Bean.

Amid the ongoing hype around content marketing Mark Yeow argues agencies and clients are getting too bogged down in the detail and need to look at content more broadly.
Our industry’s fixation on content marketing is keeping us from seeing the bigger picture.
The power of content extends far beyond lead generation, conversion, and other measures of marketing ROI. It is, perhaps the critical ingredient of any brand – essential to the vision of any discipline involved in creativity or communication, and indicative of their healthiness and longevity.

Streaming services have been getting a lot of headlines of late. OMD's Jeremy Gavin looks at what impact such services will have on evolving the television as a medium.
The Netflix beast is a product of its environment.

A curious mind is a prerequisite for being a creative. So why don't more youngsters entering the creative world ask questions asks Will Clark.
As a junior creative one of the most powerful creative tools is already at your disposal. Curiosity can be a crucial tool when starting work in an industry you know very little about. After my first few years in advertising I have come to realise the full potential of being a curious creative.
Fresh out of design college and AWARD school, I was ready to get stuck into the world of real briefs, real clients and real award potential. However I quickly discovered that the world of advertising is vastly different to the picture that we often paint in our minds before getting there.

Following the expose of blooding and other practices in greyhound racing last week Damian Madden looks at what the sport needs to do to regain public trust.
As an animal lover, and somebody who has been to the dog track occasionally, I was abhorred when I saw the Four Corner’s footage earlier this week of greyhound trainers ‘blooding’ their dogs using live animals.
Watching the fallout in the days that followed I began to wonder if greyhound racing could recover from this catastrophic blow. Has its brand been damaged beyond repair?

Today David Thodey announced he is retiring as CEO of Telstra after five years in the role. Richard Curtis who worked with the telco during his time with Interbrand, explains Thodey's role in rebuilding one of Australia's biggest brands.
Two experiences bookend recollections of my time working with Telstra, over a seven-year period in which I worked with three different marketing teams.
“Didn’t we do the brand last year?” was how one Telstra executive put it, somewhat taken aback by the idea that the Telstra brand might evolve, let alone have implications for his own business unit’s activities.

After predicting the winner of the Best Picture Oscar two years in a row using data Bryan Melmed puts his reputation on the line for a third time.

Our audience data and insights accurately predicted the best picture Oscar winner in 2013 and 2014. So it is possibly foolhardy to put our neck on the line again but as the saying goes, go hard or go home so I’m here to tell you that Birdman will win. Or at least this is what the data suggests. And here is why.

D&AD CEO Tim Lindsay argues scam is a disease and doing work to just win awards is worth nothing.
You would expect us to say this, but it has been an exciting year at D&AD. With the help of the Glue Society, Google and others we’ve brought New Blood to Australian shores for the first time, launched our new NowCreate programme and forged new partnerships with creative organisations around the world – such as AWARD - to enable us to better support the global creative community. It has been a good year.
However, as much as we’d like to focus on all the positives about our wonderful business, it’s important we don’t stick our head in the sand and ignore the more difficult stuff.

UM is shifting its focus from being the Big Boutique to the Creative Connections Agency. CEO Mat Baxter and chief strategy officer Sophie Price sat down with Nic Christensen to explain why the new positioning is more than just semantic, how it has torn up its remuneration model and why the traditional media agency focus on paid media is broken.
Say what you want about Mat Baxter, the iconoclastic CEO of UM knows how to generate a headline.

Navigating celebrity ambassador agreements can be difficult, with several high profile agreements ending badly in recent years. Here Stephen von Muenster and his team give some tips on what to look out for when drafting the legal terms.
Personalities who become brand ambassadors can be a powerful marketing tool for brands. From celebrities to social media influencers, they have the potential to make brands and products relatable and accessible, increasing exposure and successfully driving sales.
Unfortunately for brands, their fairytale relationship with an ambassador doesn’t always end happily ever after.

Brands are increasingly cashing in on the popularity of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in an attempt to lure the pink dollar with the likes of ANZ's GAYTMs leading the charge, writes Robert Burton-Bradley.

Listicles, quizzes and cat videos might be the flavour of the moment for content marketing, but it's only through in-depth long form content brands can really engage customers argues Atomic 212's Richard Quinn.
In today’s time-starved world, people just don’t have time to read longer content items. Give them short, quick snippets which can be quickly digested, like snacks on the run.
Or so you think.
In truth there is substantial evidence pointing to the contrary, which could have significant implications for your content marketing strategy.

Recently Prime Minister Tony Abbott was criticised for not being a good enough salesman for his policies. Here Elliot Epstein looks at how politicians could improve their sales technique to their electorate.
Law, Unions, Engineering, Journalism, Small Business, Academia and Agriculture have all delivered people to politics.
But the world of high stakes senior sales professionals, steeped in the art and science of winning complex, competitive multi-million dollar deals has not regularly supplied our parliaments with its exquisitely skilled members.

Facebook, your brands strategy is screwed

I am not one of those people who hate the idea of Facebook making money. But in its latest attempts to make money from brands, it has lost its way.

And the brands have become so obsessed with getting “likes” for their posts, they’ve mostly stopped saying anything relevant.

Today was the final straw though. It dawned on me that the more brands I choose to like on Facebook, the less likely my friends are to see my own updates.

Which means I’m going to have to start unliking brands. As others realise what is going on, I suspect they’ll do the same thing.

The issue is that the algorithm quietly changed a few weeks back. Now, somewhere towards the top of the news feed, users are offered a “pages you may like” section.

It feature brands that your friends have previously liked and invites you to do the same. The placement is paid – and can be based on an action months before, a point that most users tend to miss.

The confusion was demonstrated quite well when I took a holiday last week. I’m delighted to report that I managed to go completely offline – no phone calls, no email, no internet whatsoever. Yet my colleagues were demanding to know when I got back how come I’d been busily liking brands such as Telstra, Meat & Livestock Australia and even Colonial First State while I was supposed to be forgetting about the world of marketing.

Of course, I had liked those brands at some point – probably months before. But my colleagues – and reasonably social media savvy ones at that – got the impression that this was something I’d done that day. Confusing perhaps, but no harm done, or so I thought.

Until I got this email from a friend today:

The email that turned me against liking brands on Facebook

So in other words, he got pissed off with seeing the Colonial First State mesage, but when he tried to mute it, it offered him instead the chance to change what updates he sees from me. So his only way to see less spam from Colonial First State is to choose to see fewer genuine updates from me.

Unless of course, I unlike Colonial First State. Which I just have. I guess the other 249 brand pages I liked are going to have to follow.

There’s another thing going on.

We’ve written about Condescending Brand Page before. Facebook decides how many messages to show consumers from brands based on how well liked and shared previous posts have been.

Which is why brands have become obsessed with messages about “Like this if you’re glad the weekend is coming”, just to improve their reach.

But of course, that’s pretty pointless if they never actually talk to consumers about anything relevant to the brand.

As a brand page owner, we get trapped in the same thing. If we boringly tell our readers about the best stories we’ve posted, they may well click it, but they aren;t likely to like it.

The Heston penis effect

But if we go off topic and put a funny piece about Heston Blumenthal’s head looking like a penis in an unfortunate photo, our reach soars. I’m not sure what it really does for us as a brand though.

Once in a while, I guess it helps you stay up in the algorithm, but too many brands now refuse to post anything that consumers won’t engage with – inane or otherwise.

A few weeks back, I was at a breakfast presentation from WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell. He argued that Facebook will never be as profitable as Google, because people don’t want their social conversations to be interrupted by brands. At the time, I wasn’t sure I agreed. But actually, I think he’s right.

‘Like gaming’ is just the most widespread method brands pages are using atm to maintiain organic reach in a race to the bottom with competitors.

Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm looks at multiple variables (not just likes/comments) in determining its score (and hence reach) – if you’re posting links that get heas of clicks, that content will score well too – other factors include things like “mouse hover” time over the post in the feed – which is harder to game than “click like for puppies!” but it can be optimised for.

Chris
24 Oct 12
2:40 pm

Consumers? You guys aren’t paying anything for Facebook and never have! You get this world of social interaction and comprehension behind the most feverish dreams of a 1980s nerd brought into your homes, your pockets. And you COMPLAIN because you have to scroll past an advertisement?

What is wrong with Gen-Y? Where does this horrid, unfathomable entitlement come from?

I’m honestly speechless.

cj
24 Oct 12
3:02 pm

@Chris (#8): The issue isn’t having to scroll past ads, so much as that the ads appear to be initiated by your friends (or at least recent action they have taken).

Joel
24 Oct 12
3:13 pm

Yeah, Tim… You damn entitled Gen-Y!

Dan German
24 Oct 12
3:24 pm

My biggest concern is my brand posts used to reach at least 20%, and often up to 45% of our base. Since the change, our most popular posts are reaching 2-3% of our base, unless we pay. in essence, we cannot count on FB to reach all of out fans who have clicked “like”. FB is still a valuable tool to connect with old friends, but their brand pages have jumped the shark.

I have been playing with advertising over the last 3 months and it is a very interesting beast. Just small amounts on a side project but I do fear what will happen when I remove our budget.

EP
24 Oct 12
4:12 pm

You’re still using FB? So “noughties”….

Dorothy
24 Oct 12
4:12 pm

@Chris (#8) – what pisses me off as a consumer is I am seeing messages from brands I haven’t liked, but I’m not seeing messages from brands that I have liked because the algorithm deems them not relevant enough or whatever. It’s ridiculous.

Ringo
24 Oct 12
5:35 pm

money can’t buy me love

Billboards Cost Money
24 Oct 12
6:26 pm

If Facebook iron out the algo, so that it is better (people see the brands they have liked) and then ensure that the brands who pay get even more exposure – that is okay isn’t it? (Rather than letting corporates have space for free?)

For mine they should turn off Edgerank altogether & let fans decide what they want to see.

@cheshunderlay
24 Oct 12
10:06 pm

What concerned me was seeing my sister’s name come up as one of the friends who liked a page she never in her life would have (one of the sports betting websites), and she has gone on to swear she never has. I’m still trying to work that one out.

To be honest why are we even having this conversation. Who cares. We’re all gonna leave facebook when something better comes along in the next couple of years. It will become of ghetto of farmville invites and brand awareness.

A
25 Oct 12
8:09 am

Facebook, what’s that?

Bob
25 Oct 12
8:51 am

The only brands I’ve liked are the ones that send out mostly discounts/freebies. Otherwise, I don’t see any point in friending a company.

Craig
26 Oct 12
6:22 am

Brilliant post Tim.

I’d like to see Facebook’s response as well.

nell schofield
1 Nov 12
12:33 pm

FB advertising is irrelevant for anyone over 30 which is only 90% of our ageing population

Kelly
5 Nov 12
10:30 am

The new Facebook algorithm sucks ass overall. 75% of what pops up in my feed now are stupid ‘Like this if’ pages, rather than genuine status updates and photos.

Time for a new social platform to step up perhaps?

Agreed
6 Nov 12
11:00 am

Yep, I was fooled a couple of times thinking that a friend of mine had liked a post, however they hadn’t liked the post, they do like the page of the company concerned. it is bad because for some of my friends it makes them seem really out of character, with a mate of mine appearing to like a powder room renovation, which in turn funneled a heap of friendly insults his way. He in turn unliked the companies page so that he was not associated with anymore of their posts.

Facebook haven’t got this down pat and to really pull this off you need an human eye from their end me thinks….? It aint adwords and will not scale on tags and quality score – this is social and is all about senses.

I am going to be very careful when I select to promote any of my posts on Facebook now.

aaron woolf
13 Nov 12
2:27 pm

On the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster where 96 Liverpool football fans died in a stadium crush, a friend of mine was mentioned in a sponsored post ‘liking’ The Sun newspaper.

If you understand the issue Liverpool fans have with The Sun then you will find it utterly appalling that Facebook did not prevent this ‘sponsored post’ from happening on this day of all days. If you don’t, then you should Google details of the disgusting lies in the disaster reporting The Sun carried out after the tragedy.

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